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McGee: Earning from consoles like "digging out from under an avalanche"

Alice: Madness Returns developer Spicy Horse is praising the F2P model for having sunshine flying out its hindquarters, as earnings from their F2P titles outstrip their console ventures.

Boss American McGee said trying to earn from consoles today is like "digging out from under an avalanche," where if you don't "get out" in a short amount of time "it's all over."

Free-to-play meanwhile lets everyone taste a product for nothing while letting its creator continue to improve upon it until a profit is produced. Their F2P "generate more" than Alice "ever did, or likely will."

McGee cautions in an interview with GameInformer, that the console method of gaming has to evolve as it won't work for much longer - those days are dying out. "Earning out on a console title is like digging out from under an avalanche,” American McGee declared.

"If you don’t get out from under the advances within a very short period of time it’s all over. F2P offers an opportunity to release something into the wild and improve it continually until it returns a profit. Making good on the opportunity is in no way guaranteed, but the option is there."

"This all being the case, we’ve already seen our online F2P games generate more profit and a better ROI than" Alice: Madness Returns, he said, adding it has generated more than it "ever did, or likely will.”

The future of the console market as it stands now was never going to last, notes McGee: "Though the console market extracted two decades of profit and mindshare from Western developers and consumers, it was unsustainable from inception.” It's the idea of having a central and physical location for gaming that's the problem.

"Looked at from the perspective of external markets where consoles aren’t the foundation of the gaming ecosystem, the idea of physical media (discs) and fixed location gaming (consoles) now seems anachronistic."

“But it’s worth examining where the money flowed in a market where consoles dominated and how they helped consolidate power among a handful of publishers. The transition we’re now seeing is a revolution of the model that will lead to greater freedom for future publishers, developers and consumers.”

Spicy Horse is based in Shanghai, China and has around 50 developers on staff. One of their latest projects is BigHead BASH, a F2P social network title featuring full 3D graphics and real-time action; it's in closed beta. Check out the full interview between American McGee and GameInformer.